GT Imperial Navy

[MJD]

Heh... if they've lost the manuscript then they've lost it several times over. That's not it at all - they repeatedly asked where the project was, were told, and then promised some answers from their end before just going silent again. If they lost anything it was almost certainly interest. Or the plot maybe.

If they DID publish it:

1. Yes, it would be in e23
2. They'd be guilty of copyright theft since the MS belongs to me.

My general feeling is that GT has been winding down for a long time and there's no real interest in pursuing it. But that's just my perception as a gamer.

As to me writing more Traveller... yes. Avenger have several more Traveller products coming out and of course I'm working on MongTrav. 1248 will have to wait and see what the Mongoose licensing arrangements are going to be. If I do more Traveller it'll be for Avenger and Mongoose. It's highly unlikely that I'll be freelancing for anyone else in the forseeable future.

 

[Theophilus]

While I've kinda got your attention

On the subject of TA7 Fighting ships

were the punisher and tianenmen dn's pictures based on the cardboard markers from imperium or FFW?

 

[MJD]

Yes, you have my attention (wry smile). I don't normally post about my work anywhere but the Avenger boards these days but, well, exceptions do happen.

The short answer is that I don't know where the images came from. I wrote the text, as I recall, and art was somebody else's problem.

 

[Theophilus]

It kinda struck me as funny that the images were long and thin and short and round, just like the counters from the boxed games.

 

[jcrocker]

Heh... if they've lost the manuscript then they've lost it several times over. That's not it at all - they repeatedly asked where the project was, were told, and then promised some answers from their end before just going silent again. If they lost anything it was almost certainly interest. Or the plot maybe.

I bought and read Grand Fleet this weekend, and I think it's great. SJG's loss, whatever happened.

 

[MJD]

I agree with each and every one of those sentiments...!

 

[Border Reiver]

I would thoroughly recommend Grand Fleet to everyone. In fact I would love to see a dead tree version with the production values upped, extra illustrations, perhaps extra content (not really needed but it might help it sell more if it had more stuff not in the original PDF).

Nice product.

 

[Antony]

I too throughly recommend Grand Fleet, and I'm using TNE.

 

[Theophilus]

Perhaps Grand Fleet and TA7 Fighting Ships could be rolled into one product?

 

[JFZeigler]

Yeah, I think Martin's recounting is about right.

It's been a few years, so my recollection may be a bit hazy on details. I do know that I spent most of my tenure as GT Line Editor getting books that were in Development Hell for one reason or another done and into print.

GT:Imperial Navy was the one that I never managed to figure out. I don't believe I was ever able to locate the outline or draft that Martin produced. And by the time I got to that one, it was starting to be obvious that I wasn't going to be holding the job much longer.

I still feel kind of lousy about that, by the way. Sorry, Martin. I am glad the thing finally saw print, even if I didn't get to work on it.

 

[MJD]

Thanks for that Jon. As I recall you weren't in the job all that long then suddenly Loren seemed to be doing it again. By the time you got the job someone at SJG had dropped, punctured, burned and hidden the remains of the ball, I suspect.

I'm still pretty choked about it, in that we went out of our way to be accommodating when the project first went off the rails at the SJG end, got ignored for months on end and then (more than once) were suddenly asked 'so where are you with this? Are you still interested in working on it?' when we'd been repeatedly trying to tell someone, anyone, at SJG where we were and that yes indeed we were willing to finish the damn thing. Indeed, we more or less had... This was always followed by another long silence and a repeat of the process.

The fleets book went into development hell at the SJG end for reasons neither you nor I will likely ever know. I finally made something back on it as an Avenger release but overall it was a waste of effort in my part. I rather resent being commissioned to write a book, offered payment on publication, and then having the publisher decide they didn't want the book after all.

It happens far, far too often in this industry, which is why almost all my work is done for real-world publishers who pay about 10 times as much and, well, actually pay.

 

[MJD]

Addendum: For the record, I more than fulfilled my end of the deal with SJG. They screwed it up, not me, and my efforts to fix their screwup were far more than could be reasonably expected. The manuscript published as Grand Fleet is entirely mine. I know I've said that before but copyright is a funny thing.


Anyway, thing is that Grand Fleet is mine (Avenger's) and TA7, while written by me, is owned by QuikLink. I don't see how a joint project is possible at the Avenger end. If QLI were to give me a suitable amount of money it'd be possible to do as a QLI product but I don't imagine it'll happen.

 

[Mysterion]

I would thoroughly recommend Grand Fleet to everyone. In fact I would love to see a dead tree version with the production values upped, extra illustrations, perhaps extra content (not really needed but it might help it sell more if it had more stuff not in the original PDF).

Nice product.

An enthusiastic second of the above.

would LOVE to see a dead-tree version of this book.

BTW: the two "1248" books you put out are very spiffy, indeed.

 

[robject]

I've been the victim too many times of people stating incorrect information over and over until it becomes 'true'.

Man, that really sucks. I always try to represent people as honestly as possible, and try to judge statements based on internal merit and source. I also find that it's easier to be sloppy, and as a result there'll always be more noise than signal over most everything. It's inconvenient when it ruins an online reputation, but it's criminal when it can hurt a career.